Woke up to the sound of the guys from last night getting their bikes sorted, 1x WR250’s, 2x DR650’s. The little 250 was blowing a lot of smoke and Ian and I thought “Shit, hope that things just been in storage with some oil down the cylinder, otherwise his going to have an interesting trip.” The run into Thargomindah was a single lane of bitty which reminded me of the Plenty Hwy in the NT where I used to live. Having nice wide dirt shoulders either side of the black crap, I ended up sitting off in the dirt keeping a watchful eye out for wildlife as we ran into the rising sun. Fuel for the bikes and coffee for us Fergies in Thargomindah. Taking the back way to Toompine we were dodging Roo’s and Emu’s along the black soil plains. About 5km out of Toompine I pulled up along side a Jackaroo who’d stopped for a smoke and was putting off meeting the in-laws for a few more minutes. He was on a DR650 which was decked out with a car style UHF with an external speaker and a few other essential bits and pieces someone working the land may need. While having a quick chat he mentioned he’d been mustering out west on the big DR and was having to change the oil in it daily due to the heavy going in the sand. I thought to myself “Hmm, must remember to do an oil change when I get home”. We passed through Toompine without stopping and we’d later find out from John that there was interesting cemetery out the back of the Pub to look at. Oh well, just an excuse to head back another time. Stopped for fuel and lunch in Quilpie where I managed to do a Ewin when the pump didn’t shut off, ending up with me and the bike covered in fuel. This seemed to amuse the fat stinking inbred attendant who thought it was a great laugh. I didn’t think it was that funny and “kindly” asked him to get me something to clean it up with. Not wanting to hand over any more of my hard earned to this wanker I choose to head down to the bakery and grab a pie, which my old man had been raving about how good they were. The pie wasn’t that great and Dad would later tell me it’d been a few years since he’d had one from there, anyway I was feeling better that I hadn’t eaten from the servo, even if Ian thought his sandwich was very nice. We kept tracking north until hitting Adavale where we were at the most northern point of the Rally and about to start the downhill run. I’d made into town a few minutes before Ian and pulled up to a building which I took for the Pub which looked like it was undergoing renovations. A couple of guys came out to the some of the bike to tell me that it was actually the heritage listed town hall which they were in the process of bringing back to it’s former glory and that if I turned around I might notice the big XXXX sign which usually indicated there was a Pub within. Just as Ian was rolling in I headed for the Pub and signal for him to do the same. Being mid afternoon and still having a fair few miles to go for the day we elected to have a squash and got chatting with Deb the licensee. Deb was your typical welcoming bush Queenslander and told us that she had a couple of offers on the pub after we’d asked about the for sale sign. She let slip that for anything over $137K we could walk in and take over there and then. Checking the time we realised we’d betted push on if we were to make our goal of Charleville and beyond for the day. Passing through MarialaNational Park on fast flowing pea gravel I was heading into a left hand corner to see a Ute coming at me on the wrong side of the road. I ended up running very wide and left the driver to keep his line. In the usual laid back Qld fashion a quick wave from the driver and a, thank Christ I survived that from me, and it was done with. Pulling up for fuel at about 1600 in Charleville Ian and I discussed our next move, we worked out if we kept going for a bit that we should be able to make it into Goondiwindi the next day before knock off, where we had tyres waiting. Pushing on we got in another 100km before pulling up and making camp for the night on the side of the road.